CFD Trading Platforms – How To Find The Right One For You.

So you’re interested in trading, are you?

First of all, good for you and congratulations! It’s a rare breed of person who has the courage to take the plunge and start taking steps to potentially build the kind of wealth that can be truly paradigm shifting. Life changing.

The fact that you’re willing to take the step at all shows that you have much of what it takes to potentially succeed in the long term.

The question then, becomes, what platform do you want to trade on? Believe it or not, your selection of a trading platform can make a huge difference in the level of success you could potentially enjoy. That’s because different brokers allow you to tap into different markets, have different rules and fee structures, and so forth, and these things can make a significant impact at the margins, which can lead to your getting dramatically different results, depending on which platform you decide to go with.

Since it really matters, the first question is, what traits or aspects are most important when evaluating one platform as compared to another? In our view there are seven!

In no particular order, the seven aspects to consider are:

Trust

As with anything dealing with money, the issue of trust is paramount. You’ve got to be able to know, with absolute certainty, that when you issue a buy or sell order, the platform you’re using is going to see that trade executed when you want it. There’s more to it than that, however. The company has to have a foundation of rock-solid ethical principles and be absolutely beyond reproach.

Customer Service

One way that trading platforms can help build that trust is by providing whatever level of handholding their customers require. Obviously, this will vary from one person to the next, but the bottom line is, when you have a problem, you want to know that the people behind the trading platform you’ve selected is on the case. That they’ll fix your problems, address your concerns, and get you back to trading quickly, so you don’t miss any opportunities.

Platform Flexibility

There’s another dimension of customer service that’s worth mentioning here, too. The trading platform you settle on has to be well designed, and frankly, it just has to work. That means, it needs to be intuitive and easy to understand, so you don’t have to call customer service in the first place. If the company has done their work well, about the only times you’ll ever have to reach out to their support team is if there’s some kind of systemic failure or issue, and those should be few and far between. When they occur, your ideal trading platform will have you back up and running in record time.

Width and Breadth of Services Offered

This includes access to the most markets and the most types of trades. The last thing you want in a trading platform is one that will limit your access to markets because it’s simply not very mature or well-developed.

Platform Availability

Ten years ago, you’d have probably been building your trading empire on a laptop. These days, however, your options are wide open. Some days, maybe you’ll be at your desktop PC. Other days, you’ll be on the road, and the laptop is the most appropriate tool. Still others, you might be using your smartphone or tablet. You need a platform that is supported on every device type made, because that’s where the current state of the technology is. It’s a high speed, flexible world, and if your chosen platform isn’t up to the task, then you’re going to lose opportunities.

Costs

The platform has to have low fees, and no hidden costs. The lower the better, because lower costs mean higher total returns for you if you have traded successfully, and anything you can do to increase your potential returns is a good thing.

Tools

You want information at your fingertips. The more the better, preferably organized in a clear, logical, and concise manner. There’s no such thing as too much information, but unless that information is well organized, it’s going to be hard to turn it into actionable intelligence. The trading platform you choose needs to provide those tools to you. It’s just that simple.

Finally, Let's Talk a Moment About Security

Hackers are relentless – every year sees more successful data breaches than the previous year in the internet’s entire existence – hackers are always upping their game. Their attacks increase both in number and sophistication.

You need to know that the trading platform you ultimately select is using state-of-the-art digital security protocols. Understand that even these may not prevent the most determined of hackers, but one thing is certainly true: more and better security is preferable to less.

Taken together, these seven traits define and describe the perfect trading platform. Unfortunately, simply reading about various platforms will only take you so far. If you want to really know and understand the capabilities of any given platform, your due diligence needs to extend to a trial run. That means downloading the app and seeing it in action firsthand.

The simple truth is that every person is different. Everyone’s needs and tastes are different. One platform might just seem more intuitive for you to use than another, and it’s important to find the one that meets all of the criterion above, yes, but you’ve also got to be comfortable using it. It has to fit you like a glove.

Investing requires discipline and focus. Those things matter, absolutely, but your choice of trading platform can literally mean the difference between profit and loss for you. Over time, a well chosen trading platform can enhance your trading experience and assist in helping you achieve your goals that much more quickly.